She used to call me her cute little bastard. It wasn't until I
was in my early teens that I figured out what my Nana (Grandmother) was
really saying to me. I was born, as polite people would say,
out-of-wedlock, in 1959, Catholic, upstate New York. My mother rarely
told me anything about my dad. Sometimes, if I pressed for information,
she would say something to placate my curiosity, but in my heart, I knew
the stories she told were not true. For example, when I was in
elementary school, I asked the ever omnipresent, "Who is my
father?" She once said he died in Vietnam; however, we never
visited a gravesite and there was no evidence of medals, honors, or more
importantly, pictures. At sporadic moments throughout the years of
childhood I would try again. The reaction from my usually good-natured,
quiet mother would turn to agitation and tears. She would turn brusque
and scold me to stop asking. As it upset her greatly, I didn't
often ask. At times, she would give me a name and say he was someone
with whom she worked.

Even as she lay dying in late 2009, I asked for the final time.
Again, she repeated the name I had heard a few scant times before, a
name I now understand was not that of my father. Growing up, I could
never understand why the rest of the family shunned us and now I realize
the mores and norms of those times dictated that parents should keep
their children away from tainted families. Traditionally, in White,
middle-class, American culture, motherhood and marriage are synonymous.
What I learned long after this search was over is that I never felt
legitimate. Even the patriarchal term illegitimate to describe a child
born outside of marriage is still around today, but has its roots in
centuries of law from many societies around the globe. Mary Louise
Fellows (1) discussed how the law of legitimacy has developed and
changed over time. Once, finding that a child was a man's legal
heir meant that man was responsible for the child's support. She
noted that feminist scholars stated, "the answer (to legitimacy)
may be found by focusing on the relationship of property, gender, and
procreative power" (2). In "Anglo-Saxon" (3) culture men
were/are soundly in control of their family, what constitutes family and
their household. Wanda Pillow (4) noted during the Civil Rights Movement
in American history an increase in White women becoming single mothers
prompted fears of a "lack of family values" and a
"collapse of societal structure" (5). Jane Bock (6) further
offered a feminist deconstruction of legitimacy. Historically, families
with a single-female head of household have been, demographically, the
poorest segment of the nation, with the terms single-mother and
welfare-dependent becoming pejorative stereotypes. In 1967, Harry Krauss
(7) reported in the Michigan Law Review that, "Illegitimacy is a
way of life...a second-class way of life, imposed not only by the fact
of birth outside a family, but by law as well" (8). Harsh words
now, but through this journey, I realized that I embedded these words,
and all the ugly connotations they contain, into my identity.

For much of my life, when anyone asked me about my father, I was
often evasive or just straight out lied. I now realize how much it
bothered me that I didn't have a father. In the early elementary
school years, I recall making Father's Day gifts and the teacher
came to me a whispered, "Perhaps you have an uncle you can give
this to since you don't have a father." It was as though I
belonged to a distant clan the likes of whom she had never encountered.
In middle school, there was some snickering laughs from the other girls
as they questioned me about my dad and I do recall some playground
bullying, in which I never understood what I did to be a target. But the
full impact of the ostracization never occurred to me until much later
in life. I always assumed I was strange, alien, and quite different from
my mother, my sister, or my Nana. My nature thrived in isolation and I
had few friends except for the thousands of volumes in the library. But
now, as I approach 60-years of age, and because of genetic health
problems, the craving to know my father and his family has become a
burning beacon in my soul.

Over the decades, the only people who knew the truth about the fact
that I did not know my father were my husband and children. At times, it
bothered me that I didn't know my heritage, genetic illnesses, or
even what my father's family was like. I didn't even bother
weaving a fantasy about him because there was no sentimentality involved
in relation to a father figure; my identity was carefully woven as the
daughter of a single mother. In their research on adoptees and birth
parent reunions, Lee Campbell, Phyllis Silverman, and Patricia Patti (9)
discovered four reasons given why adoptees look for their birth parents:
life-cycle transition, desire for information, hope for a relationship,
or a desire for deeper self-understanding. As with those study
participants, information about family heritage, genetic health issues,
and self-understanding were the impetus to begin my path to know my
father. In 2018, as the too quick journey through my middle-age years
was rapidly coming to an end, I once again became curious. Not for my
children, as none of them have the slightest interest in heritage or
ancestry, but for my peace of mind. I guess I just wanted to finally
know who he was before I became too old to take advantage of the gifts I
possess for research, but I really think it was a matter of identity;
that wish to finally understand a piece of me which I knew had been
missing from my life; that missing puzzle of identity. Knowledge of my
history, my heritage, has always been an incomplete half-circle and I
wanted closure.

The aims of this paper are: to tell the personal journey of
searching for my identity within my father's family, to give voice
to women who went through pregnancy and motherhood as single women and
the struggles they endured, and to consider the uses of autoethnography
in education. After walking this path and realizing my deeply embedded
biases, stereotypes, and fears that I have never recognized, I realized
that using autoethnography could be a way to teach about identity and
diversity in higher education. Drick Boyd (10) contended,
autoethnography is a venue that allows the writer to transform their
learning in a pragmatic and contextual way. It is my hope that this will
allow for conversations about difference within my pre-service education
courses.

Always, We Begin Again

In 2018, on what would have been my mother's 83rd birthday, I
decided to take a DNA test. Often associated with crime dramas, the
invention of a commercially available, direct-to-consumer DNA test was
not offered until about 2003". By 2007, companies offering this
testing began to become affordable and aggressively advertised their
products. According to Antonio Regalado (12), more than 12 million
people have used commercial DNA testing in recent years. There are more
than 30 different companies offering quick, inexpensive, easy to use DNA
home test kits. The multi-billion-dollar company, Ancestry.com is the
largest of the at home DNA test and offers the most comprehensive
database of family genealogy.

I always knew some information about my mother's family
lineage and ethnic/racial heritage as my Nana carefully wrote down all
she could remember from both her side of the family and my mother's
paternal side. She even created a peg board game with the names and
dates of birth and death of these long-ago relatives. She often told
stories of the old country and how her mother and father came to
America. Keeping the past alive was deeply significant to her and she
hoped she could preserve this heritage to pass to her children and
grandchildren. To her, it was the one incorruptible inheritance she
could give. She was raised during the American Great Depression and had
no savings, real estate, or valuable jewelry to give to her children,
but, in her eyes, the knowledge of the family history was worth far more
than gold. Therefore, with much anticipation and even trepidation, I
waited until the results about my paternal heritage came back.

Using Autoethnography

I decided to tell my story through autoethnography. Autoethnography
refers to "researching and writing about personal lived experience
and their relation to culture" (13). The researcher's focus is
on their personal interpretation of culture and understandings (14). In
using this methodology, my gaze was turned inward, and I acknowledged
that while I jumped into this pool of my own reflection, this is a story
told from the gaze of my own biases and experiences. Deborah Crow (15)
explained this practice uses the self and personal narratives to
untangle cultural beliefs and practices. My journey was couched in a
personal narrative around an issue which shaped and defined my identity.
This frame allowed the reader a glimpse into a personal aspect of my
life that told a unique "human experience and social sense
making" (16).

Using autoethnography is also a way to empower voices who have been
historically marginalized (17). Michael Patton (18) highlighted critical
autoethnography as a means to break through constructs of White,
colonialist privilege, questioning power imbalances between the
researcher and the researched. Autoethnography takes away the concept of
other as the focus of study and turns the lens inward. Carolyn Ellis and
Arthur Bochner (19) elaborated the core of this methodological process
is self-awareness connecting the personal and the cultural. They also
cautioned that autoethnographic writing can require difficult, intense
introspection and self-reflection, "The self-questioning
autoethnography demands is extremely difficult, so is confronting things
about yourself that are less flattering" (20). I found this to be
true in my struggles as I began to unearth ugly truths about myself;
revealing long hidden prejudices, anger, and resentment about some of my
family history and deeply embedded prejudices hidden within me. But as
Laurel Richardson (21) posited "writing stories about our
'texts' is a way of making senses of and changing our
lives" (22) (5), I found my sense of self and my identity shifting
with the new knowledge of my father and his family, experienced through
a somewhat painful emotional roller coaster of introspection.

Re/defining Identity and Family

My journey was, and continues to be, one focused on identity. I
relied on social identity theory as defined by Dominic Abrams and
Michael Hogg (23) as a lens to understand how I (re)/defined myself and
my concept of family. Vivian Vignoles, Seth Schwartz, and Koen Luyckx
(24) introduced the theory of identity. Identity involves internal and
external meanings of self. Identity also consists of levels of
definition: individual, relational, and collective. Individual refers to
the aspects of self-identification which include beliefs, values, and
behavior. Relational identity refers to one's role in connection to
others. It also encompasses how an individual interprets that role and
assumptions. Collective identity refers to peoples association with
groups and social categories. It also defines how the person gives
meaning to these groups.

Growing up in a lower socio-economic class, Catholic, White,
female-head of household shaped my identity for over a half century.
James Cote (25) constructed a framework that explained the connection to
identity and culture. The supposition is that individuals in most
societies can actively strategize their identity through their means and
access to capital. This can represent various forms, e.g., wealth,
education, etc. and is closely tied to Pierre Bourdieu's (26)
social-class reproduction theory with the goal of social-class mobility.
James Cote (27) further articulated that social institutions such as the
family, schools, and the workplace weave a complex and tightly
inter-woven tapestry in the formation of individual identity. He used
the term "tribal differentiations" (28) are those that
tradition-based patterns of behavior that are shaped by many factors,
such as: gender, race, ethnicity, religion, geography and age. Cote
coined the termed "identity capital" (29) to delineate how a
person negotiates the multifaceted whims of societal tradition. While
cultural and human capital are beneficial, they may not be able to
sustain an individual throughout a life-time. A person's strength
of their identity capital through a "stable sense of self"
(30) is required when other forms of capital wane. In this theory is the
belief that the self is interpreted and categorized through comparison
to others who are similar and are categorized with the self. (31) Jan
Stets and Peter Burke (32) elaborated two processes involved in social
identity formation: self-categorization and social comparison.

My path was also one of privilege. Social capital, as defined by
Bourdieu (33) is actual or potential resources which "provides each
of its members with the backing of the collectivity-owned capital, a
'credential' which entitles them to credit, in the various
senses of the word" (34). It was this credential to which I
attributed the ease of my journey to find my father. Without the social
capital I have banked, my education, my technical knowledge,
understanding of social media, and finances, I may not have ever found
the identity of my father's family. Amanda Barrett Cox (35)
recognized that social capital is unequally distributed in our society
and is usually only available to those who occupy more privileged
positions in a given social hierarchy, e.g., White, male, and those with
more education. These privileges offered access to a broader social
network both in social and financial resources. This search would have
been much more difficult if I had not had social standing (PhD), money
(Middle-class) or racial privilege (White). This journey was laden with
access to knowledge and resources, e.g. buying and sending about two
dozen DNA kits to people, purchasing access to American and
International record databases providing birth, marriage, and death
certificates, baptismal records, and census information, Newspapers.com,
(which provides access to numerous newspaper archives), FOLD3 website,
(which provides historical military records), and SPOKEO, (an online
search engine that provides information such as phone, email, and social
media records). I also obtained the knowledge to be able to download the
raw DNA data information from Ancestry.com and upload it to
MyHeritage.com, The GENI project, and GEDMatch which provides DNA and
genealogical analysis tools. Coupled with the knowledge of how to
navigate these technologies, I also used my standing as an associate
professor in a well-respected university to gain access to people who
may have otherwise shut me out.

A Path of Brambles and Roses

As I considered writing about my private journey, I realized I was
exposing my innermost secret, that of bastard, to the world. While the
term does not hold the same derogatory connotation today as it did
decades ago, when conveying my search to close friends they responded
with shock, "You don't know who your father's is?"
Their responses were constant reminders of my perceived incomplete
identity and the secret I instinctively knew I must always protect.
However, in telling my story, I am also exposing past sins of my
relatives who are no longer here to defend themselves. As Lucy Bailey
(36) cautioned when unearthing sensitive family issues, and "knotty
entanglements involved in conducting research with, on, though, and
sometimes for family members" (37), I have given careful
consideration regarding the power of my position in writing this
autoethnography. Family histories are laden with "absences,
secrets, hauntings, materialities, and affect" (38) possibly best
left undisturbed. Pat Sikes (39) reminded writers of autobiography to
consider the ethical considerations of publishing names and pictures of
those long gone and to use great caution in respectfully depicting those
images. Lesley Neale's (40) lovely words echoed in my soul as a
reminder of the responsibilities of writing about family that it
"requires the writer to balance diverse responsibilities: those to
the subject, to family members and to the integrity of the
narrative" (41). Therefore, although I believed this is a narrative
worth sharing, I have decided not to use any names or identifying
information at all in this study and I have given intense reflection and
thought into which stories should be told, and which should remain
buried.

I knew that this investigation could unearth the worst sins about
my mother, my father, my family, and myself. These secrets my mother
felt so strongly to protect she kept quiet even as she knew she was
dying. In my unveiling of them, I risked exposing her self-created shame
to the world; tearing off her protective veil of privacy she so
carefully guarded. In learning family secrets, I also risked being
judgmental in my interpretation of those who are no longer alive to
defend themselves. Through much reflection and peer counseling, I hoped
to convey this story accurately and fairly. Disclosing facts associated
with an out-of-wedlock birth had the potential to embarrass those
involved, or exhume skeletons long forgotten or laid to rest. I decided
to go forward with my story as a tribute to my mother and all single
mothers who experienced shaming, isolation, and abuse. There is a
greater value in telling my story and those of my family. Marybeth
Drechsler Sharp, Jose Luis Riera, and Susan Jones (42) wrote that
autoethnography is a uniquely appropriate avenue for the discovery of
identity and how this can be a tool for social justice learning.

My hope was also to bring light on a reprehensible cultural time
which Valerie Andrews (43) referred to as the "Baby Scoop Era"
and the mothers as "BSE mothers" (44). Through much
introspection and reflection, I determined that my story could be told
in joy, surprise, and hope. I have reflected on the circumstances of my
conception and the various family histories on both maternal and
paternal sides and endeavored to respectfully portray these secrets and
hauntings. My story may help others who have gone through the same
circumstances. Feelings of legitimacy, shame, and inferiority can be all
too real to those of us born to single women, but like me, many might
not be aware of those feelings.

During my journey, I talked with many relatives. I found a first
cousin who had just taken a DNA test that her children bought her for
her 70th birthday. A few years earlier, her mother was about to undergo
surgery for a heart aneurism. She gave my cousin a letter and told her
to read it if she died during the procedure. Her mother did pass away
during surgery and my cousin read the letter telling her that the man
she always assumed was her biological dad, was not. According to the
letter, in 1948, her mother attended a party at her friend's house.
She met my paternal uncle who had just broken up with his girlfriend.
There was quite a bit of alcohol and he became drunk and violent. Her
mother said that he forced her into relations. She never used the word
rape, but that is what happened, and she became pregnant. Although she
had a boyfriend, they had not engaged in sex, so he knew the child was
not his. Her parents put her into a home for unwed mothers. Wanda Pillow
(45) discussed how these ironically termed homes, were thinly veiled
incarceration centers that were influential in defining the single
mother as deviant. These homes were often built and managed by
religious-based organizations and the focus was on rescue and the women
who came were often "assumed not to have had the benefits of
exposure to moral and decent living" (46). The staff at these
institutions were often abusive and judgmental as they viewed this as an
opportunity to rehabilitate fallen women.

The conditions of the home for my cousin's mother were that
she could not leave with the baby unless she had an offer of marriage.
Desperate to keep her child, her father went to her boyfriend and begged
him to marry her, so she could keep her child. He did, but the marriage
only lasted 2-years and my cousin spent decades never knowing this truth
until the day her mother died. The letter named my uncle as her
biological father and the DNA test confirmed it. When I reached out to
her, she was happy to know about him and wanted to see a picture, she
was lovely and kind, and even invited me to her home. Yet I could hear
the pain in her voice; the unforgotten pain that her mother endured and
the pain she discovered in conjunction with her mother's passing.

Many of the stories I heard were not unique. As chronicled by
Valerie Andrews (47) homes for unwed mothers we not uncommon in
post-World War I and II America. An unmarried pregnant woman clashed
with the constructed ideal of a married mother and violated the societal
expectation regarding sexuality and motherhood. Unwed mothers have been
variously thought of as deviant, feeble-minded, or ill throughout the
first few decades of the 20th century. A post-World War I social
experiment proposed to offer unwed mothers a chance to redeem themselves
through the creation of homes which often violated the Civil Rights of
these women. The institutions labeled these women as inmates although
they were not technically incarcerated and closely monitored all
communication with the outside world. Andrews emphasized these women
were subjected to "physical, psychological, and emotional
abuse" (48) and told their babies would be better off with a
respectable family. Although my mother was not placed in a home, I know
she was subjected to the same judgmental attitude about
single-motherhood. A stigma she may have rejected, but certainly
harbored deep in her soul.

First Lessons in Genetics

At the beginning of this journey to discover my father's
identity, I only had partial information about my maternal family
lineage and heritage. Based on information from my Nana, I understood
and embraced my Dutch and Belgium heritage as part of my tribal
identity. When asked about my heritage, I could answer this part in
certainty. Weekly, we visited several relatives who had migrated from
Holland and took great pride in seeing me continue with the traditions
and dress of the old country.

Although my mother was a single woman raising two daughters in the
1960s our Nana was more affluent. We lived with her, on and off,
throughout my childhood. My mother worked two, and sometimes three jobs,
as a keypunch operator, to support us. I never saw her go on a date or
go to parties; I never heard her talk on the phone with a man, but our
lives were full of activities that bound us together with joy. She
arranged horse-back riding, ballet, skiing, music, and ice-skating
lessons. We went on picnics to local parks almost every weekend, in all
types of weather. My mother made sure to have a family vacation every
summer which included trips to Civil War battlefields in Virginia, the
Hershey factory in Pennsylvania, and many National Parks, zoos, and
aquariums in upstate NY and Ontario, Canada. My identity was shaped
around these two amazing women who defied traditional norms of marriage
and family.

Mom always told us she never wanted to marry because her mother, my
Nana, had been married five times. My mom was the oldest of four
children and when Nana left her first husband and married number two, he
was abusive to my mother. She vowed she would never marry, but she
wanted kids. I recall her saying that even though we were poor and
sometimes went hungry, we were still better off without a father in our
lives.

Road to Appalachia

When I received the email containing my DNA results 2018, I
remember looking at them thinking, "They really messed this up;
must have switched my DNA with someone else's." My mother was
born in the mid-1930's in upstate NY. To my knowledge, she never
left the state until we were young and travelled to visit my Nana after
she moved to Pennsylvania. My DNA ethnicity estimate was as follows:
Great Britain - 55%, Ireland/Scotland/Wales - 16%, Scandinavia - 13%,
Europe West - 8%, Europe East - 5%, Caucasus - 3%. Under the migrations,
they stated, "Central Appalachia Settlers" and Southwestern
West Virginia and South eastern Kentucky and Virginia settlers. My
response was "What?" I know, (at least I thought I knew) that
my mom's side was all from Holland and Belgium and they all settled
in New York. Perhaps a little German here and there, but where on earth
is the Scot, Irish, British ancestry who moved to central Appalachian
coming from? Certainly, it had to be a mistake.

I knew what my Nana had told me, the ancestry of both my maternal
grandmother and maternal grandfather going back generations from Holland
and Belgium. So, I expected to be 50% Dutch and I expected to see most
relatives living in New York. I called Ancestry.com and spoke to a DNA
specialist. I asked her if there was some way the lab could have mixed
up my results with someone else's. She went right to the point,
No!" She was very polite, but stern as she explained that the lab
runs the test 40 times. If there is an irregularity with any of the
results, in other words--if anything varies from the other--they ask for
another sample from me. In a tear-choked voice, I explained that I
didn't know who my father was, but my mom told me it was a man from
New York, a guy with whom she worked.

BUT....None of my DNA matches were from any kin in NY except for
moms' side of the family.

The DNA specialist calmly and concisely gave me my first lesson in
genetics. She gently explained that most people think, "Well my mom
is 100% Greek and my dad is 100% German, so I must be 50/50 each.'
The problem with that is most people are not 100% anything anymore and
genetics do not work in such a predicable manner. We can inherit as much
of our DNA from our 10th Great-granny as we can from our mother. Since I
knew the genetic past of my mother, she told me, I inherited most of my
DNA from my unknown and elusive father. I think I cried for an hour
after this conversation. I felt heartbroken, lost, and confused because
I imagined I would be able to figure out the puzzle of my father's
identity. Instead, what lay before me was a labyrinth of more unknown. I
had no clue where to begin or what to think. My heart was devastated. As
I wrote to my new-found cousin a few weeks later, I thought this process
of identifying my father's family would be straightforward. I would
do the DNA search and, while it was possible that my biological dad had
passed, certainly one of his children, my half-brothers or half-sisters
would match. I would call them, and we would live happily ever after. I
was soon to learn that genetics and family searches are not easily
inclined to give up their secrets. I was able to connect with a handful
of my mother's DNA kin through email and by telephone, but the
remainder were all from this ephemeral father figure. The closest DNA
relation was not a father, sibling, or even aunt or uncles, but second
cousins. So, I sent three dozen emails to various biological relatives
inquiring if anyone knew my dad.

Was Mom a Racist or Just Angry with my Father?

Initially, I felt quite indignant being told about that much of my
DNA make-up originated from Appalachia, an area of the United States
that follows "the spine of the Appalachian Mountains from southern
New York to northern Mississippi. It includes West Virginia and parts of
12 states: Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York,
North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and
Virginia" (49). More than geography, this region of American is
wrapped in a culture of mining, forestry, and agriculture. Many of the
people who settled here are fiercely private and this area of the
country once had the highest poverty rate in all of America. I felt the
earth shift under me. The realization that there was a kernel of
prejudice within me was shocking. An in-depth investigation into my,
surprisingly, judgmental feelings was necessary. When I was young, I was
never allowed to watch the weekly country and western variety television
show, Hee Haw, an American television show situated in the fictional
"Kornfield Kounty" and highlighted country/bluegrass music and
comedy skits. In 1972, the movie Deliverance came out, which was about
four inner-city men who decide to go canoeing in rural Georgia. The plot
is that they encounter back wood locals who terrorize and violently
attack them. This seemed to confirm in my mother an uncharacteristic
hatred and prejudice towards mountain folk. I didn't realize it
growing up, but upon closer investigation I recalled she disparaged the
bluegrass music I loved as "shit-kicking" music. She never
used a racial epithet against any race or culture except for
"hillbilly", which she reserved for her most venomous
contempt. This derogatory term envelops, what Anthony Harkins described
as an "amalgamated cultural icon" (50) and pictures lazy,
uneducated, violent, and primitive people. The people of Appalachia have
been cast in the role of "other" by wealthy Northerners,
especially in the industry heavy region of New York state, and
industrialist seeking to exploit the abundant land and resources, e.g.
timber, minerals such as copper and mica, coal, etc. (51) It was not
until I began to chronicle my journey that I understood how detrimental
the term is and how it stereotypes working class, southern, Whites.

Although I was always musically inclined and played several
instruments while growing up, she forbade the banjo. It was only after I
left home that I was able to play the instrument that beats with my
heart. Her best and closest friend's husband played bass in a
bluegrass band, but she dismissed this as something vulgar and
offensive. Not until I began this journey into the search for my father,
did I realize that I internalized some of this prejudice. It was a quiet
cancer deeply embedded in my psyche and emerged vehemently when I saw
the DNA results stating that my paternal kin settled in Appalachia.
However, this also brought up the question as to the roots of my
mother's apparent classism and racism. Did she really know my
father's family and resented him because of his family? Did her
prejudice encompass more than ignorance of the peoples of Appalachia or
was she projecting hatred at my father and his family? I will never know
the answers to these questions and can only speculate. However, there
was something I could do about my prejudice.

My internalized identity said I was not a racist person. My
children are Mexican-American and I proudly boast of my social justice
writings. But why have I harbored this judgmental attitude against
people from Appalachia? A few years ago, I never would imagine being so
proud of having a strong Appalachian heritage but now it feels so
natural. I believe this is an example of that constant shifting of our
identity as we grow and learn. In her lovely autoethnography, Raquel
Cepeda (52) said "More than anything, this place feels familiar. I
bury my hands in the hot sand and think about the embodiment of memory
or, more specifically, our natural ability to carry the past in our
bodies and minds" (53). This quote loudly echoed in my thoughts as
I discovered the identity of my father and his heritage. It was in me
all the time. It was a part of me; I just didn't know it.

Strings in my Bones

After four months of inquiry, that seemed like decades, calling
strangers who matched as cousins on Ancestry and leads from those
cousins, and ordering DNA kits for those potentially closer relatives, I
was rewarded with the knowledge of my father's identity and
although he passed away in 1991, I was slowly able to piece together the
history of my paternal family. One day in May 2018, I found a new cousin
who matched on one of the DNA sites. She matched as a first cousin,
which meant that her father and mine were probably siblings. I sent her
a message and told her everything I knew so far. This most frustrating
question for me was how my mother and father could have met. In the
middle of the conversation, she asked where I was born. I told her and
there was a long pause. I thought she hung up the phone, but she quietly
said that her father had a job at an electronics factory in upstate NY
in the late 1950s and that four of his brothers would often visit him.
Tears and emotions overwhelmed me and kept my voice silent...because I
remembered that my mother worked at that same factory during that
timeframe! This solidly solved the enigma of how my parents met. My
cousin told me that her father, my uncle, was from a family of 10
children, but only the four youngest boys would visit him in NY. The
others had families and careers and did not travel. I was overjoyed
about this connection. I assumed from this new information that my
mother met my father through a coworker. The biggest problem was that
all but one of the brothers, including my father, were dead. My
challenge was to find their children and see if they would take a DNA
test.

The turning point in this query was third cousin. She reached out
to me through social media. She matched as my 3rd cousin and she said
she never contacted people this far related from her, but there was
something about me that made her want contact. She stated, "Yes, I
would be one of the Appalachian relatives. The first thing that caught
my attention when I turned to FB to find you, was the photo of you on a
horse. Made me smile, I thought, yes we are for sure related." This
cousin owns show horses and said that our family has a long line of
owning horses for riding and not just farm work. She sent me this
picture of my paternal distant cousin. Beside it is one of my mother
with my children.

This cousin was also adept as DNA and genealogical research and she
suggested I join a social media site dedicated to genealogy. This site
is run by dedicated and knowledgeable people who assist others in
finding lost family members through DNA searches. This represented
another part of the social capital I have been accruing in that I have
knowledge of social media and technology. Having this cousin recognize
me as part of the "Appalachian clan" gave me a unique insight,
but my Ph.D. was the badge of access needed for most people to be open
to talk with me. I had access to the internet and social media and the
resources I needed to allow a smooth search. My financial stability
meant I was able to pay for the databases in various genealogy sites,
pay for a phone and email information database, and buy an account for
newspaper and obituary databases. I had the knowledge and technology to
be able to upload my raw DNA data to other sites, thus reaching more
possible kin. When I did reach out to these complete strangers with a
request for information about their family, I always began with my
privilege, "Hi, I am searching for information about my
father's family. This isn't a scam. I am an Associate
professor at a well-known university and you can go my website and check
me out." My cousin cautioned that hill people, as she referred to
our family from Appalachia, are very protective of their own. If they
see a stranger, they will build a wall around their kin and shut them
out. My cousin was my voucher into the family circle. As I discovered,
sometimes people have a protective instinct about themselves and their
families.

At the end of May 2018, a volunteer genealogist with whom I had
been working, identified my paternal grandmother from the results of the
many cousins who had taken DNA tests. My grandmother had 10 children,
but the most likely were the four youngest boys who visited my uncle in
N.Y. My grandmother's oldest daughter died in the 1918 influenza
epidemic at the age of 2-years old. The two oldest sons had jobs in the
coal mines and families to support, so they rarely left West Virginia.
Two daughters had been married, but never had children. This left a set
of twin boys, and the two youngest boys who could potentially be my
father as they often visited their brother. Using a private detective, I
was able to obtain the names of the children of the four brothers. Three
of these men had since passed away, but one was living and one's
wife was living. I called them, and all agreed to take DNA tests. My
aunt, the wife of one of the twins, was in her 80's but was warm
and welcoming. She gave me much information about the family. She gave
me names of people to contact who could be my siblings. One of the men
who agreed to take a DNA test was later identified as my half-brother.
When I called and gave him the spiel about the search for my father, his
comment was, "Well, knowing my dad you could well be my
half-sister!" He volunteered to take a DNA test and has embraced me
as a long-lost friend. When I met this new brother, we instantly bonded.
We have the same blue eyes, the same mannerisms, the same sense of
humor, and the same love of banjos. When I was with him, I felt as
though I had known him my entire life.

Little by little, as I learned about my Appalachian kin, I realized
the things that made me odd in my mother's family, were common and
embedded in my father's family. For example, I am the only person
with blue eyes. I am the only one with musical talent. But dare I
mention that I am also the only one in my mother's family who
enjoys a drink? My mother was a teetotaler her entire life, and so was
Nana. If either of them had a glass of wine at Christmas, it would knock
them out cold. I have a deep love of the mountains and really don't
enjoy the beach, or the seaside and I just come to tears when I hear an
old bluegrass song. I always had horses, although no one in my maternal
line owned a horse as a pet. These small differences represented
tangible symbols of an identity of which I could never connect to my
mother's family. My cousin suggested to me that a sense of place
and geography is imprinted in your genetics; that you feel a sense of
home in one place over another. She stated that the West Virginia hills
and the culture of the Appalachians has been deeply embedded within me
and was calling me home.

Certain aspects of my identity came into focus as I talked with
more and more relatives. During a phone conversation with one of my many
warm, welcoming cousins, I found out that my first cousin played the
banjo and he toured with many bluegrass bands. He told me that the
entire family played an instrument and every night they would sit
together and play. They didn't own a television or even a radio. He
said my grandmother played the 4-string banjo and that "strings
were in our bones". Early in my first conversation with my brother,
I asked him what his favorite music was. His response, "Anything
with a banjo in it!" My brother also plays the banjo and was
surprised that I do, too! To me, this explained how music, especially
the banjo and bluegrass, have been an integral part of my identity from
childhood.

Mothers, Grannies, and Ghosts

My Paternal Grandmother was a complex woman. Born in 1901, she was
the 4th child in a family of 10 living in the hills of West Virginia.
Her father was a farmer and her mother a midwife. She married at 14 and
her first child in 1916 at the age of 15. This little girl succumbed to
the virulent flu epidemic of 1918. She had 9 other children who all
lived to adulthood, among whom were a set of twins. It was a loosely
held family secret that her husband frequently took up with other women
and rarely worked. My Granny had to support her growing children with
little education and limited opportunities. She started a speak-easy, an
illegal saloon or drinking establishment, during the time of
prohibition. A curious profession for her as her husband was an
alcoholic. I learned that she had several paramours and that her four
youngest children were not her husband's; however, his name was put
on all the birth certificates because to have done otherwise would have
exposed her and given uncontested grounds for him to file for a divorce.

In 1944, her oldest daughter earned a bachelor's degree and
moved them out of West Virginia to Maryland. The two oldest boys refused
to leave the hollow, a term for the area between the mountains, as they
were working in the mines and had established families. My aunt wanted
to give her mother and siblings a better life and move them away from
their abusive father. My paternal grandmother died in 1954 from cancer
and the more I heard about her, the closer I felt to her. Learning more
about my father's family was creating new bonds within me to them.
She had a rough and tumble life, but she kept all 9 of her children
alive under the most horrific of circumstances. All of them became
financially successful and went on to raise wonderful families. She
married young but made the best of her situation and did what was needed
to take care of her children. I had a growing affinity for this woman I
will never know.

However, as I learned more about my granny, I was also becoming
more uncomfortable with my mother's past and her secrets. More and
more troubling questions filled my mind: Did she even know my
father's name? Was it a one-night drunken tryst? Was she protecting
me from an image of love and perfection I had crafted around her? The
fact is, I'll never know, and it does not matter. Ironically, drawn
to the life of my paternal grandmother, I found myself becoming
increasingly depressed at the thought that my mother may not have been
the sainted figure I had created in my mind. When I confessed this to my
cousin, she chided me in that while I was feeling a strong bond to my
paternal grandmother, I was judging my mother. I realized that the story
of my conception and circumstances surrounding it are my mother's
story; not mine. All the questions I had are her secrets and hers alone.

Implications of my Journey

As I walked this trail, I reflected how autoethnography can be a
pedagogical tool for teaching about diversity. As a future project in
graduate special education courses, I would like to utilize
autoethnography for this purpose. Researchers Caroline Albon (54) and
Melissa Tombr (55), among others, have shown this is a unique way to
help people understand themselves and others at a deeper level. The use
of autoethnography can disrupt traditional ways of thinking about
identity (gender, race, social class, ability, and family). Sheila
Trahar (56) discovered anecdotal writing does have a place in higher
education as it can generate new knowledge through an individual's
unique perspective and view of the experience. Julie Pennington (57)
found similar results when using autoethnography with pre-service
education majors to disrupt assumptions about White privilege and create
more understanding of culture and difference. Using autoethnography
created a space for White pre-service teachers to dialogue about race
and culture. Heewon Chang (58) explained some of the different
interpretations of culture. Some people view culture as being associated
with a group of people who have common location, languages, and norms.
Others see culture as individual, the self-culture that in which my
culture begins with me. My beliefs, my behaviors, language, and values
defined how I viewed the world and experiences. This perspective made me
an "active agent" (59) of culture. Boyd (60) found the use of
autoethnography in education, "created disorienting dilemma and led
to a process of reflection and transformative learning on the impact of
whiteness on my behavior, language, and attitudes" (61). I
certainly found this true of myself in this personal journey of mine and
I can see the power autoethnographic pedagogy could have at all levels
of education. This could be a way for students to understand and
appreciate identity formation in those with difference from them, or
those who do not have the advantage of equitable social capital. In his
work with students in a social work program, Stefan Battle (62) stated:

In using autoethnography to share our stories with students, we model
for them how to confront and contemplate their own painful pasts and
how they can do the same for their future clients. This sharing process
allows us to enhance a person's personal growth and may help to erase
harmful, stigmatizing pain and shame. The process of helping students
get to know themselves will transfer into their work with clients who
are socially different from themselves (63).

Returning Thanks

Lee Campbell, Phyllis Silverman, and Patricia Patti's (64)
study sought to discover the motivations and how learning about a birth
parent could impact the adoptee's self-esteem and identity.
Although I was not adopted, and I knew my mother, I related to the
people in this article as they searched for their heritage; finding that
missing piece of identity and sense of self. The outcome of their
interviews with adoptees revealed that most of those who found their
birth parents reported little negative effects and, in fact, reported
that their self-esteem greatly improved. Following the reunions, the
adoptees were asked, "What would you change, if you could do it
over again?" (65). The majority responded that they would not
change a thing and I feel the same way about my journey.

In October of 2018, I met with two of my 2nd cousins in the hills
of West Virginia. With a backdrop of vibrant fall colors and the
mountains which one side of my family has called home for generations,
we sat down for a meal. I was asked if I would like to return thanks.
Indeed, I would. I would like to return thanks for this marvelous path
that has led me to an acute self-awareness about my mother, myself, and
the father I will never meet. As the great philosopher, Ziggy Marley
once said, "I was born by myself but carry the spirit and blood of
my father, mother and my ancestors. So, I am never alone. My identity is
through that line." (66) I realized how my identity and my
self-culture has dramatically shifted during this year long sojourn. For
so much of my life, I was the child of shame and illegitimacy, leading
an insular life without extended family ties. Suddenly, strangers who
were somehow familiar to me, drew me into their circle of love with
warmth and acceptance. Many of them did so with gratitude for gaining
information about their families of which they had not previously known.
Where I once had a cousin or two who were social media friends and
little else, I now have dozens of cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces and
nephews who are delighted that I found them, and they have
affectionately welcomed me in.

So now, how does this shift my self-image? Honestly, and with some
embarrassment, I feel legitimate. I want to scream to my elementary
teachers and those classmates who bullied me in the playground,
"See, I really do have a father!" Although, my father died in
1991, I have met my brothers. I am the oldest of my father's
children and the only girl. My brother told me that his father wanted a
girl and even refused to go to the hospital when his 3rd son was born.
It was surreal to look at my brother and finally see someone with my
exact same eyes; my smile, and my laugh. It made me feel special to know
that my father would have wanted me and would have loved me. This
journey has taught me that family and the concept of family, is a fluid
and everchanging miasma. For all of us, as we change and grow, parents,
grandparents, and siblings may die before us leaving us to constantly
re/define ourselves and our identities and to re-assess where we belong
in the family we have built for ourselves.

For the first time in almost 6 decades, it is my honor and
privilege to proudly say, here are pictures of my mother AND my father.

(11) Paschal Borry, Martina C. Cornel, and Heidi C. Howard,
"Where are you going, where have you been: A recent history of the
direct-to-consumer genetic testing market," Journal of Community
Genetics 1, no. 3 (2010): 101-106, doi.org/10.1007/s12687-010-0023-z